Systems and methods for sales and inventory management

Abstract

A method for sales and inventory management of items offered for sale by at least one merchant and supplied by at least one vendor is disclosed. The method may include configuring a sales and inventory management utility and report generator using a processor coupled to a data storage device. It may also include receiving, by the sales and inventory management utility, a plurality of sets of retailer inventory data from a plurality of retailer systems, wherein each set of retailer inventory data identifies a plurality of items, a tag, and for each of the plurality of items, a stock keeping unit (SKU), a quantity in stock, a retailer, and a vendor. The method may store the plurality of sets of retailer inventory data as a plurality of retailer item records stored on the data storage device, each item record identifying an item of the plurality of items, the SKU, the quantity in stock, a retailer code for the retailer system, and a vendor code for the vendor, and then receive, by the sales and inventory management utility, point-of-sale data feeds from one or more retailer systems from the plurality of retailer systems, wherein the point-of sale data feeds comprises sales data, wherein the sales data identifies one or more items of the plurality of items, a retailer, and a quantity sold. For each of the one or more items identified in the sales data, the method may update, by the sales and inventory management utility, the retailer item record on the data storage device by adjusting the quantity in stock based on the quantity sold, and generate, by the report generator, a sales and inventory report based on the sales inventory data stored on the data storage device.

Description

FIELD[0001]The embodiments described herein relate to systems and methods for sales and inventory management, and in particular, to systems and methods for sales and inventory management using point-of-sale transaction data.INTRODUCTION[0002]Vendors selling products to retailers may not have easy and consistent access to Point-of-Sale (POS) data for their products, even though this type of information is important to their ongoing business. Similarly, retailers may also not have easy and consistent access to POS data for their products. Basic information such as units sold per store, units in stock in inventory, and average selling price may be important to both vendors and retailers to make informed decisions about product assortment, promotional spending, and inventory levels.[0003]Yet across most retailers, this retail POS data is generally not harnessed or shared by retailers in a systematic or programmatic way that would enable valuable collaboration between retailers and produ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is a system and method for managing the sales and inventory of items offered for sale by a plurality of retailers. The system receives data from multiple retailer systems, including inventory data and point-of-sale data, and stores it on a data storage device. The system can update the inventory data based on the quantity in stock of each item and generate a sales and inventory report based on the data. The system can also alert the retailer when the quantity in stock of an item is low and allow the retailer to order additional quantities from the vendor. The invention allows for efficient management of inventory and sales of items by providing a single platform for managing data from multiple retailers.

Problems solved by technology

Vendors selling products to retailers may not have easy and consistent access to Point-of-Sale (POS) data for their products, even though this type of information is important to their ongoing business.

Similarly, retailers may also not have easy and consistent access to POS data for their products.

Yet across most retailers, this retail POS data is generally not harnessed or shared by retailers in a systematic or programmatic way that would enable valuable collaboration between retailers and product vendors.

Even in those cases where retailers do have reports that they share with vendors, the data shared is typically unreliable and not up-to-date, limited in its scope and may require significant formatting, manipulation and processing on the vendor side.

These services, however, may offer limited functionality and flexibility for vendors wanting to drill down into the details of their business and product sales.

Further, because they are not ‘retailer-sponsored’ programs, the data service provider may have to deal with suboptimal data, leading to manual cycles to rework and reformat the data that they're being sent by the retailer.

In addition, quite often, data may simply not be available at all from key retailers, rendering the service marginally useful for large groups of vendors.

Images